


I Like that You're Broken, Broken Like Me

by makothecat



Category: IT (Movies - Muschietti), IT - Stephen King
Genre: Alternate Universe - No Pennywise (IT), Bisexual Stanley Uris, F/M, Georgie Denbrough Lives, Implied Childhood Sexual Abuse, Jewish Richie Tozier, M/M, Not Gonna Get It Here Tho, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Physical Abuse, Recreational Drug Use, Richie Tozier Has a Sister, Suicidal Thoughts, Suicide Attempt, The Losers Club (IT) Deserve Happiness
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-02-17
Updated: 2020-03-16
Packaged: 2021-02-19 01:47:32
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 4
Words: 11,627
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22769956
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/makothecat/pseuds/makothecat
Summary: Teen Rescue Behavior Modification Home is open to any problematic teen. Fag, slut, fat, or suicidal, and everything in between. Hand it over, they'll beat the kinks out. Minister Bob Gray is here to help.
Relationships: Eddie Kaspbrak/Richie Tozier
Comments: 2
Kudos: 33





	1. Richie Tozier is Smoking Dope

Maggie Tozier is sniffling in her mother-in-law’s kitchen. She came into her marriage so sure she’d show this bitch up, how to _actually_ raise children. Don’t get her wrong, she loves and adores Cynthia’s son. But Went has more than a few issues. He didn’t even know how to do laundry when they got together! He’d been so set in his parent’s old-fashioned ways and still falls back on them often. Especially with Richie. 

“I don’t know what to do with him,” She tearfully admits, “he’s so angry all the time, and I don’t know why. He’s skipping class and getting detention. He’s-” Oh, Maggie doesn’t even want to admit this part! “He’s smoking marijuana!” She whispers like a hiss. “I don’t even know where he’s getting it, Went thinks it’s from this man at his work.” 

Cynthia looks as happy as a pig in shit. She gets to yell at her daughter-in-law? And put her least favorite grandchild in his place? What a lovely day. 

She chews Maggie out about confusing Richie by exposing him to her Jewish father, about not going to church, about letting him have a job at a record store. About needing to do something before Charlotte ends up this way, too. 

Richie is at school, or at least pretending to be. So they plan to toss his room for anything he shouldn’t have, preparing to ground him. Maggie hasn’t grounded her son since he was eleven, and it was just from the television and his walkman. She’s never done anything this extreme before, but Cynthia seems confident. 

So confident, that at one point, she heaves his mattress up. Maggie is sitting at Richie’s desk when she does it, sorting through his cassettes and old schoolwork. Starting to feel relieved, like she’s overreacting, because the music isn’t too bad, and the papers have high marks. Maggie would _love_ to be overreacting. But Cynthia, short of breath in her intensity, picks up the corner of his mattress to find an inkling of evidence. 

With Maggie’s help, they shove it to the side, and unearth a treasure trove.

The original plan had been to strip Richie’s room to the necessities. They would leave him with his bed, his desk, his sheets, his lamps. There would be no books that were not school books, no music, no comics, not even a Rubik’s cube. He’d hand over his car keys, be driven to and from his activities, do his homework at the kitchen table, and go to church with his grandparents. 

But that, which had seemed excessive to Maggie, paled in comparison to what Cynthia had cooking up by the time Richie got home. 

On the dining room table, Cynthia displayed their findings. A glass bowl, a wooden box with a plastic bag of marijuana and mostly empty pack of Winston’s in it, a small assortment of lighters. A copy of Hustler, a Playboy, and most damning, two Advocate Men magazines, which Cynthia kept covered by a pillowcase and rushed Charlotte away from like they’d snap at her. 

Wentworth had been horrified to see what they’d found, and put up no fight at all as his mother made calls with the phone in their kitchen. It was far from all set when Richie rolled up, accosted for the keys to his pre-owned Jeep at the door by his father. But the seeds were off in the wind, just waiting for the first one to land, and he’d only have to spend a night or two in his bare-basic bedroom before being sent along to follow it. 

Richie was sat down at the dining table, a criminal in his own home; this confrontation serving as his interrogation, trial, and sentencing. His parents and grandmother stood on the other side, all his sins laid out between them. 

They don’t listen to any feeble attempts to explain, there is no asking for another chance. They are all locked jaws and stern expressions, except for his mother. And well, seeing Maggie cry, Richie doesn’t stand a chance. It’s only worse that she tries to hold it in, and that he’s being yelled at: he’s practically sobbing with confusion. 

He can’t even claim innocence, that he’s holding for a friend, or that the pornography they sold at work had black covers in the plastic sleeves, he had _no idea_ that Advocate Men was a _fag’s_ magazine. His shaggy black hair still smells like pot from the last time he smoked, his fingernails have the beginnings of a nicotine-stain-yellow. There are two copies of that particular rag, too. Dated _months_ apart. None of this could be passed off as a coincidence. 

Richie is made to look on while his father searches his car, too. It’s something he’s fiercely proud of, he saved up for over two years to buy it himself. He weeded gardens, babysat total brats, raked leaves, shoveled mountains of snow. He walked dogs and collected mail for people on vacation, he saved every monetary birthday and Christmas gift, shit, even the spare change he’d pick up off the sidewalk. He’s only ever asked for ten bucks in gas money, ever. It’s a piece of junk, but it’s _his._ They find a spliff in there, and his grandma isn’t impressed with the fast food trash on the floor, either, admonishing him for the fat and the laziness. Wentworth puts Richie’s Jeep in the garage next to Maggie’s Dodge neon, not even allowing his son to be the one to park it there, and blocks it in with his own car. 

When they come back in, Richie is sent up to his room without supper. He ascends the stairs to see what he’s left with, which is almost nothing. He does have what’s in his backpack, which he hurries to hide. Paranoid as he does it, because he is no longer allowed to fully close his door. Richie sneaks a single comic, Ghost Rider/Blaze #1, into one of the few shirts he has left, which are not as they were when he went to school this morning. A notebook and pen gets thrown to the very top shelf in his closet. His brand new portable CD player, which his parents thankfully haven’t even seen yet, gets carefully wedged between his headboard and the wall. He has Pearl Jam’s _Ten_ in it, and that’s not on his stranded-on-a-desert-island list but it’ll have to do because his zip-up CD book is gone. 

In fact, _everything_ is gone, except for his furniture. He has two pairs of his least ripped jeans, five plain t-shirts, a sweatshirt, two solid color button-ups, his church slacks, two pairs of pajamas and his socks and underwear. A fitted sheet, a flat sheet, his comforter, one pillow instead of two. 

It’s like he’s sitting in someone else’s room, a showroom, some place alien. He doesn’t feel like he actually came home to this, he feels like he was transported here. Zapped, beamed up. Maybe it’s a bad dream. 

Richie falls asleep on top of his perfectly made sheets, still in his shredded jeans and ugly flannel with the scent of smoke weaved into it, in hopes he will wake up in the real world. 

Unfortunately, he does not. 

He wakes up at five-thirty am to eat breakfast with his father, who files through his backpack and yells at Richie for not doing his homework last night. Richie inhales his toast and cereal, then flies through his math worksheet under Went’s scrutiny. To his utter shock, he gets smacked in the back of the head for getting a solution wrong. 

His dad doesn’t hit him a lot. It’s happened before but it’s usually his hand, or his arm, or a spanking when he was really young. It’s never been for something so small. Tears sting Richie’s eyes, and he sniffles, trying not to let them spill over. Went’s hand twitches, like it’s threatening to rear back again. 

“I think we’ve been too soft with you.” His dad says, no words of comfort to give, “You wouldn’t have made it to dawn with grandpa, in his glory days.” 

When his mother and sister wake up, Richie’s left with a small laundry list of chores by Wentworth, who leaves for work. He wheels the garbage can to the curb and does the dishes when Charlotte finishes breakfast. Maggie tells him the rest can wait until after school, and then gets ready to drive them there. 

“Is something wrong with the Jeep?” Charlotte asks him once they’re sitting in their mom’s backseat. She’s only three years younger than him, just started high school, and he’s been driving them there since he bought it. 

“Richie is grounded.” Maggie answers for him. 

Charlotte frowns. “Why, though? Did you crash the Jeep? You can’t even drive?” Richie gives a half shrug, and his sister rolls her eyes dramatically. “Are you not even allowed to talk?” 

The car starts moving, backing out onto the street. “Enough, Charlie.” Their mom says, final. 

Richie can’t shake off the _weird_ , even at school. He has no smartass comments for teachers or any need for a very long bathroom break. He goes to every single one of his classes for the first time in a long time, even though he can’t find it in himself to really pay attention to any of them. It haunts him, to know the purgatory he’s going home to. 

Grandma said they were going to “straighten him out”. That they were going to find a place to do it, and Richie’s brain immediately jumped to military school. He’s been threatened with it more than once, and he’d thought his parents had been joking. But the approach taken with him last night suggested otherwise. 

By the time he joins Charlotte outside to wait on Maggie, he’s genuinely concerned for his hair. He’d look fucking awful with a shaved head. 

“So, what did you do?” Charlie asks him, sitting on the bench and swinging her legs slightly. Richie doesn’t answer right away, so she goes on. “Grandma wouldn’t let me in the dining room all last night and then she threw a bunch of shit out.” 

Richie groans at that. He’d unwittingly taken all the stuff he’d painstakingly obtained to it’s grave. Charlie looks at him, expectantly. “They found my pot,” He relents a half-truth, and she sighs and nods. 

“‘sucks, dude,” She offers, and then Maggie pulls up. 

Of course, Richie takes the now empty can back up as soon as he’s out of the car. He does his homework at the table with his mom close by, and when he asks if he’ll be driven to work, Richie is informed that they have quit his job on his behalf. 

His heart feels like it’s breaking, and it’s hard to hold it together. He cries quietly, angrily, while he vacuums the basement stairs. Richie loves his job. He’s always been a show-off, and getting to flex his musical knowledge on the regular is fantastic. Plus he gets to try out new voices with his coworkers and customers, it feels so _good_ to make people laugh. His parents don’t laugh at his jokes anymore. The most Charlie does is blow air out of her nose harder. The people there aren’t around him long enough to find him annoying. 

So now he’s got no car, no job, which means no money, none of his stuff, and probably no hair, soon. 

Went comes home, and Richie is actually invited to dinner tonight. It is awkward as hell, the conversation is stilted and fake. Like they’re in a play about a perfect family, but no one knows their lines. 

There are two more days just like that, where Richie feels like a stranger in his home, where he’s spent his whole life. He can’t concentrate on anything, be it his school lunch or an English assignment. His dad hits him four more times, over stupid things like not being able to start the lawn mower and not matching socks fresh out of the dryer right. 

It’s very nearly a relief when grandma comes back over, with a place to straighten him out. Maybe it’d be easier to take this behavior from strangers, maybe it’ll hurt less. Maybe things will be normal when he gets back. 

The seed, it turns out, has landed at _Teen Rescue: Behavior Modification Home._ Not a military school, but a Baptist establishment founded by a man named Zachary Denbrough in a place called Derry, Maine. A sixteen hour drive from Chicago, Illinois. 

While grandma talks to his parents about it, Richie turns the pamphlet over in his hands. There’s a picture of Zachary and his family, a pretty wife and two sons, who are all pale and thin. There’s another picture, of the minister there, named Bob Gray according to the text curved under the circle of his image. He looks like a creep. Richie doesn’t like his smile. 

Richie’s remaining articles of clothing are packed into a bag for him. A call is made to his school, explaining an upcoming _six week_ absence. Grandma tells him to set an alarm for four in the morning - she and grandpa are going to check him in, because Went can’t spare the day off work for the drive. 

Once he’s banished to his room for the night, he spends a minute conspiring to smuggle in his CD player. Standing in the mirror trying to smooth out the lumps it makes under his clothes. It’s early spring, he can’t get away with a big coat or tying one of those boring button-up shirts around his waist. He settles on the sweatshirt, but not the pocket. That’d be too obvious - he tucks the player in the waistband of his jeans, letting the pocket take the blame for the bulk of it. 

He lay in bed that night, wishing he could run away from all of this. But his car is still in the garage, blocked in by his dad’s SUV. Even if Richie could find his dad’s keys, he doesn’t know where his are, and they’d probably wake up while he moved Went’s car. They’d call the police if he just _took_ Went’s car. 

Sleep eludes him, anxiety and regret keeping his brain awake. He should’ve just stuck to the underwear section of department store circulars. Why did he have to get ballsy and go for the hardcore stuff? Why did it make him so excited to know there were enough guys like him out there to warrant an entire publication? That there were models willing to whip it out knowing the way they would be fantasized about? 

He drops off around three forty-nine and wakes up incredibly cranky. Not five minutes after the alarm goes off, he’s getting dressed and a car horn blares outside. His grandparents are, apparently, already here. 

Richie reaches for his CD player and almost jumps out of his skin when his door opens. But it’s only Charlie. 

“What’s going on?” She asks, far too awake to have just gotten up. The horn honks again outside. 

“I gotta go,” Richie says, shoving the CD player in his pants and moving towards and out of the door, Charlotte stepping to the side and out of his way. She follows him down the stairs, though, through the kitchen where he grabs a bagged lunch Maggie packed for him and back out to the foyer where he crams his feet in his shoes because whoever is at the wheel is really laying on it. “I don’t know where they’re taking me, I’ll be back.” He explains quickly. 

He swings the front door open, the horn finally letting up. Charlie stops him, drawing him into an only slightly awkward hug. 

They’re not a touchy-feely family. It’s probably why Richie’s such an attention whore. But his way of asking for it is never direct, it’s never “can I have a hug”. It’s “I’m going to annoy you until you acknowledge me”. This act is just as odd as the rest of this week has been, but he curls into it. He only has one free arm, and he puts it around Charlie’s shoulders, squeezing her tight. She squeezes back, and when they pull away, is glassy-eyed.

“I’ll be okay,” Richie says, and it feels like a lie. “I’ll be back.”


	2. Beverly Marsh is an Open Case

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TW: Sexual Abuse

Things have been going this way since before mama died - why it’s suddenly enough now, Bev doesn’t know. 

She doesn’t know who decided it, either. Teachers have been seeing her come and go bruised in all sorts of ways, her friend’s mothers never even like her enough to ask. Her mama’s sister, Aunt Dorinda, only knew her through letters, and Aunt Nettie grew up with daddy. She knows what he’s like, Beverly can tell by the look in her eyes. And if she never called for her own salvation, what would make her call for Bev’s? 

It starts when Beverly is pulled aside and given a pass for her next class by the school counselor. 

The first session wasn't too bad. It’s a woman this year, who asks her careful questions and doesn’t stare at her breasts even once. “ _How are things going at home_ ?” She asked, “ _I’ve heard losing your mother has been hard on your father, do you need to talk to anyone about it_ ?” “ _Are you being treated alright_?” 

Beverly guesses she answered those questions incorrectly, somehow, because the next time they meet, the principal is sent to fetch her. 

It’s lunchtime, and she’s sitting alone in the courtyard. Perched on the corner of their sad stacked-cinder block excuse for a flowerbed, her back to a tree so no one can sneak up and dump trash on her again. That had sucked royally, she had to walk home because the bus driver wouldn’t let her on, and she had to shower while daddy was awake. She’s halfway through her peanut butter sandwich and even further through a Marlboro red she snagged out of daddy’s work bag. 

Principal Rogan announces his presence by clearing his throat, and she quickly stubbs it out and looks up at him through the glare of the sun. 

He hauls her up and drags her through to Mrs. Bryant’s small nearly-hidden office by the elbow, like she’s done something wrong. 

The questions are more direct this time, and principal Rogan remains in the room, throwing in his own questions and opinions. 

“We’ve noticed you’re alone an awful lot, these days,” Mrs. Bryant starts after they all greet each other. “Are you having a tiff with your friends?” 

Well, Beverly doesn’t necessarily know what she did wrong. She’d had a few friends every year, even if they didn’t stay all the consistent due to getting banned from homes for the way she dressed or the way she smelled or her daddy getting jealous she was spending time over some other man’s house. She was forced to sneak around to be friends with anyone, and that didn’t quite help her reputation. Greta Keene had hung out with her all summer, bumming smokes and sharing mall pretzels. Bev shoplifted a bikini for her, because her parents wouldn’t buy her a two-piece bathing suit. Greta complained to her how overprotective her own dad was, and it made Beverly too comfortable. She’d met Mr. Keene, he seemed the same kind of leary that Mr. Marsh was. She was sorely mistaken, if the look on Greta’s face when Bev finished telling her about daddy mistaking her for mama when he was drunk was any indication. Greta swore she’d never tell, but then she got a boyfriend. A boyfriend that Beverly smiled too-friendly at, apparently. Greta dropped her like a hot rock, and the girl with a boyfriend and a bikini moved up the high school food chain. She suddenly had lots of influence and lots of people to tell things to. 

So now, Beverly sits alone. 

Even principal Rogan knows, to her mild surprise. “That’s what happens when girls get to this age, they start getting catty,” He says, like he’s bragging. 

Mrs. Bryant’s lips settle in a flat line, as if she doesn’t really appreciate principal Rogan’s presence, her attention still turned to Beverly. 

“No,” She says, of course, because she’s supposed to. “Greta is just too busy with her boyfriend. I’m fine.” 

Writing something on a clipboard that wasn’t part of the equation last time, Mrs. Bryant nods. “How did you get that bruise?” She asks, tone overly sweet and non-threatening as she points out a gnarly yellow-brown smear on Bev’s soft upper underarm. 

Because of the aforementioned carelessness, Beverly has long since stopped covering her bruises. People seem to assume she ran into something, or fell, or more often, didn’t bother to wonder at all. Her blue dress only has a fluttery little cap sleeve and doesn’t even start to hide this one. It’s been so long since she’s needed one, she doesn’t even have a story lined up. 

“I bumped it-in the car door. I shut the car door on it, on accident,” Bev insists, stumbling over in the bad lie. 

Principal Rogan actually snorts at that. 

There are more questions, they spend the remainder of lunch and a whole class period in Mrs. Bryant’s office. The last she asks, though, is if Beverly would like her to call _someone._ Heavily implied to be someone who isn’t Alvin Marsh, very possibly an organization that goes by three letters. 

Principal Rogan interrupts for what feels like the hundredth time, saying they should let Mr. Marsh decide how to go forward. This is a family issue, and none of their business. 

Beverly is shaking with worry as she walks the empty halls. She’s supposed to be heading to her last class of the day, but instead ducks into the second floor girl’s bathroom. Stress smoking her final two cigarettes and doodling on the stall walls until the bell rings. She’s looking forward to skipping the bus and taking the long walk home so she can clear her head. 

But Beverly Marsh rarely gets what she wants. Her father’s rusty truck is waiting for her in the school parking lot, there is no God, etcetera, etcetera. 

He’s quiet when she gets in, and that’s always a dangerous sign with him. The volcano that is her father boils all the way home, bubbles popping when someone cuts him off in traffic, when a light turns too quickly and the whole truck harshly jerks to a stop. 

It jerks again when Alvin parks it in the dirt drive in front of their trailer. Sometimes it feels like he’s about to drive straight through the window, he pulls up so close. 

Beverly hates her father’s truck. It smells like dirt and stale smoke and motor oil and him. The pleather seats are peeling like the paint, the carpeting too many different shades of brown. A pale old New Car scented pine tree card hangs from the cracked rear view mirror. It’s hard to get out of it, today, though. Her stomach is tying itself in knots, pure dread. 

Alvin doesn’t care for her theatrics, coming around to the other side and yanking the door open. When all Beverly does is sit there, a deer in headlights, he grabs her by the hair and drags her out. 

The hollering starts there, Alvin leading her up the porch steps by a handful of auburn hair. Asking her why he got called at work, what the hell is wrong with her, why she’s dressed like a whore even though she’s worn this dress to death and he’s never said a word about it. They have a few neighbors, but they’ve never been the type to care, since it’s just as often their dirty laundry spilling out from behind closed doors. 

All Beverly can do is cry that she’s “Sorry, daddy!” and that she didn’t tell them anything. Alvin wrestles the door open and then tries to throw her down on the floor. It’s what he’s done before, it worked when she was little, smaller than him by a great deal. 

But she’s not anymore, she begins to realize, because she recovers from the release fairly well, not hitting the floor in the slightest. She crashes into the coffee table a bit, but stays on her feet. It gives her the time to run to the bathroom, lock the door. 

Alvin wheezes after her, pounding on the door and screaming about what he’ll do to her when he gets in there. 

Beverly clamors into the grimy tub, desperately trying to open the small window there. The shampoo bottles and uncovered razor clatter to the porcelain, knocked out of the shelf in her hurry. But the bottom of the window is caked in rust and soap scum and caulk where it had to be reattached before, effectively fighting back. 

The door is cracking as Alvin rams his shoulder into it. Beverly grabs the toilet tank lid, intending to break the window with it. But the lock finally gives as she’s raising it up, and suddenly her father is in the bathroom with her. So she brings it down on him, instead. 

She hits his shoulder, not his head, and there hadn’t been a lot of momentum to it. It gives a good enough pause, though, calling her a bitch and a cunt and finally going down when she adds a hard kick to the groin. 

Beverly steps over him, thankfully not falling as he reaches out for her ankles, and runs straight out the front door. 

She knows he’ll be up and driving around after her before she knows it, so she takes to the junky wooded area behind the small trailer park. It eventually lets out to a construction site, where the city has been promising to put a strip mall for a good two years. She travels parallel to the main road, deep enough in the side brush to duck and hide should Alvin come this way. 

Eventually she ends up at her aunt Nettie’s, not knowing where else to go. The woman isn’t terribly helpful, but she has experience with Alvin and her presence offers camaraderie. 

She makes Beverly take off her boots and socks on the covered porch, as they’re covered in mud and the stuff that floats in stagnant water from walking the land that slopes and pools on the side of the road. 

Aunt Nettie makes her hot cocoa from a packet and sits her at the kitchen table. Her house isn’t all that nicer than theirs, but it feels homier, safer. It’s a glimpse into what a home should really be like. 

The first thing aunt Nettie asks is if she’s pregnant, and if that doesn’t confirm Beverly’s suspicions, she doesn’t know what else ever would, short of seeing it happen with her own eyes. 

Fortunately, there’s no possibility, because it’s never gone quite that far, not yet. 

Beverly sits with her until the sun goes down, explaining what happened and answering aunt Nettie’s questions far more honestly than she had Mrs. Bryant’s. Aunt Nettie makes her a microwave dinner, and she’s feeling much better with the assurances that Alvin will drink away his sorrows and the beating won’t be as bad. 

Then the sirens and lights come. 

Beverly thinks to hide as Nettie goes to answer the door, but it’s too late. A pair of police officers enter into the living room, and when they see her, one sternly says she needs to come with them. 

Aunt Nettie looks distraught as they take her, but is dismissed, the other officer telling her they’ve got it handled, Mr. Marsh just wants her home. She squishes her feet back into her cold, sodden boots. 

On the way to the police station, Beverly locks eyes with Greta Keene. Her in the backseat of a police car, miserable and not aware she’s bleeding from the head, where some of her hair was yanked out. Greta in the backseat of one of her new friend’s cars, visibly laughing and having a good time. 

Alvin Marsh is again, waiting for Beverly in a parking lot. They arrive and the cops flank her like a dangerous criminal. Alvin’s shoulder is already bruising, sticking out of his dirty wife beater undershirt, his Dickie’s coverall jumpsuit arms now tied around his waist. He walks over with an exaggerated limp, like he’s going to reach for her again. But the police tell him they should go in and talk about this incident. 

“I worry about her, is all, I really worry about her. She’s my little girl, all I’ve got left,” Alvin claims to the officers, as if he’s not staring daggers at her when he gets the chance. Beverly fleets back to the safety of one-word answers. 

Officer Butch Bowers asks for a moment, and leaves them alone with his inattentive partner. The expression Alvin turns on his daughter is horrific. The knots are back and gripping so tight Beverly feels like she might throw up from fear. She can only anticipate how bad the beating will be when they get home. Alvin Marsh does not call the police. This is a brand new tactic, and it feels dire. 

When officer Bowers returns, he sits down with middle-aged-man-noise and slides Alvin a pale green pamphlet. “I always keep a few extra of these, God knows there’s some hooligans around here,” He taps the thing, titled _Teen Rescue: Behavior Modification Home._ “I sent my son, Henry, here, last summer. Went in a disrespectful little shit,” He says as Alvin opens it, glazing over the contents, “came out right as rain. Never makes a peep, cleans up after himself, does his schoolwork.” His partner chuckles, and Bowers smirks. “Well, best he can, boy ain’t the brightest bulb in the box.” 

Alvin nods. “They take boys _and_ girls? Keep ‘em in the same place?” He asks carefully, jealously. “I’m uh, sorry to have to say it, but I’ve heard some things about my Bevvie.” 

Bowers laughs, like Beverly isn’t even here. “They’re good and separated. ‘Took a tour when we booked Henry in, that boy’d have brought home a litter of bastards if they didn’t lock the girls up at night.” 

That answer’s good enough for Mr. Marsh, and he and the cops strike up a deal that has officer Bowers giving his reference to get a last-minute bed there, and an offer to escort them the hour’s drive there, since Henry had, according to his father, tried to jump out of the moving car more than once. They don’t speak a word to Beverly the whole time they draw up this plot.

Finally, they’re let out of the station to go home. Alvin smacks her and punches her in the face a few times on the ride home, and uses his belt in the beating she gets the moment the door is closed. She is still lying on the floor as he stomps in and out, to retrieve his tools from his truck and take the doors off of the bathroom and her bedroom entirely. He’s going to bed when she picks herself up, because she knows to make it look worse than it was, so he doesn’t come back for more. 

He stands in the doorway while she gets in the shower, and then, at long last, leaves her alone. 

In the lonely, foul-smelling quiet that settles when the water is turned off, Beverly looks at herself in the mirror. 

She doesn’t want to be daddy’s little girl. She’s old enough to fight back, however lamely. She’s old enough to be asked if she’s pregnant. 

Daddy hates it when she wears pants, or puts her hair up. Tells her she looks like a boy. He ripped up all her jeans. He strokes her long hair when he’s finished. 

If he wants to get religious, then Beverly can give as good as she gets. What’s the saying? _Eye for an eye?_

She tip-toes through to the kitchen, emboldened with the idea of a petty revenge but not dumb enough to stomp and wake him back up, to make him think she’s escaping again. Almost ceremoniously, Beverly grabs the dull scissors out of their dirty knife block. Proceeds to cut her hair with wild abandon, letting it land in the sink and on the floor and counter. 

When Alvin wakes up, her trimmings are swept into the trash and there’s not much for him to grab when he gets her out of bed, though grab he does. Officer Bowers comments on it when they arrive at their meeting place, remarking that they’re not doing this a day too soon. 

The way daddy bitches the whole way there, but can’t hit her because she’s in the backseat, feels like a small victory.


	3. Bill Denbrough Sticks His Neck Out

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's going to get worse before it gets better

Billy has a love-hate relationship with his dad’s business venture. It’s pretty much the only way he ever meets new people his age, now that he’s being homeschooled. He’s lonely, with only Georgie to talk to at home, and he doesn’t want to burden Georgie with his problems. He’s far too young to have to know these sorts of problems even exist. But God, does he hate the way he's paraded around. Hates to be his father’s “proof”. 

“God gave me a stuttering son to teach me, teach me how to help others.” Zachary says in his faux-preacher voice. He’s a good talker, a very good salesman, he’s what gets the non-religious people to send their kids here for three hundred dollars a month. But he’s not a God-damn preacher, he’s just a fake. He didn’t fix Bill’s stutter, he’s just starting to grow out of it. Doctor said so. The fact that it re-emerges when he’s upset, and Zachary claims it to be God’s punishment for having those awful human emotions, just pisses Bill off more. Which only exacerbates the stutter, much to Zachary’s benefit. 

And holy fuck, does he hate Minister Bob. He feels all kinds of _wrong._ He seems friendly at first, awkward even, like someone you should take it easy on. But then he morphs like a monster. He still wears the grin and talks in the bouncy, clown-like tone, but the things that come out of his mouth and the marks he leaves with his hands are abhorrent. 

“My mom said you have a few new kids coming this week,” One of the few good things, a boy named Eddie Kaspbrak, says softly. His mother is the receptionist at Teen Rescue. Eddie’s father died the year that he and Bill met in kindergarten, and Zachary had founded Teen Rescue just as the insurance money started to run low. The boys were _friends_ and she was in _need._ Of course they offered her the position. 

Sonia Kaspbrak hadn’t started out so bad, but over the years she’d come to be a behemoth of a woman, both physically and in her personality. She was mean, and didn’t care if you said as much. She was paranoid, deciding that some incredibly specific thing was wrong with you and not letting anyone tell her otherwise. And she was manipulative as all Hell; can turn on the tears as easily as faucet, spin a tale like she’s R. L. Stein. 

Her only redeeming quality, as far as Bill knows, is that she brings Eddie to work with her on the weekends. He’s not allowed to closely interact with the kids Sonia calls ‘dirty’. But she doesn’t want to leave him home alone. So she plunks him down at the Denbrough’s kitchen table to hang out with Bill. 

That’s where they are now, quietly talking with Eddie’s homework spread all over the table between them, more so they look wholesomely busy than to actually do it.

Bill nods, absently, too deep in his own head. Lazily sketching an eye on Eddie’s science assignment. Bill misses science. Mom won’t teach it. “Girl from Shady Nook tomorrow at t-ten, gonna be Kay McCall’s roommate. New homo S-Sunday, after church, he’s going in with St-Stabby Stan,” He looks up to hold Eddie’s gaze for a minute. Eddie _likes_ Stabby Stan. He’s one of the cleaner-cut kids here, he gets the honor of sitting in the same pew as Sonia and Eddie when it’s crowded. With a carefully measured length between them, of course; Sonia can’t have her Eddie Bear catching the _jew._ It didn’t do much to stop them, though. They whisper to each other, hold back laughter and take one another’s elbows to the ribs. Douse grins when Mrs. Kaspbrak glares at them. They make faces at each other when Stanley passes by the window on the way to the work field. Eddie’s risked his neck slipping him a paper and pencil. But Stabby Stan does not do well with roommates. That’s why he’s called Stabby Stan. “Then a fa-at boy on Thursday,” Bill sighs, “ _he’s_ getting stuck with Hockst-stetter.” Who is even worse with roommates than Stanley is. He’s not as bad as he was last year, when Henry Bowers, who Bill notes was also from Shady Nook, was here. But he’s still a terrorizing asshole. Bill gets the feeling that his parents keep sending him just so they don’t have to deal with him. 

Eddie pouts, probably still stuck on his favorite misfit potentially making more trouble for himself. Stanley spent a whole week in solitary last month after what happened with Victor Criss. 

Another tally in the CON column, was that it is at best, difficult, and at worst, ill-advised, to get attached to any of the kids that come here. It’s really the insane ones, the ones who are being given a last chance to change before they’ll go to real, brick-and-iron prison, who stand the test of time. The likeable ones wilt so quickly, bending and breaking themselves however they need to in order to survive the place. Patrick Hockstetter came in with a record. But the only person Stabby Stan had hurt before he got here was himself. 

“Do you wuh-wanna warn him?” Bill offers, and Eddie lights up. 

Even though he’s in normal school, Eddie has about as many friends as Bill does. It had been just the two of them against the world, until someone had blown a whistle on how odd the Denbrough family’s new operation was. Then Bill and Georgie were abruptly yanked from public school before any mandated reporters could catch wind. That was just how this town was. It was only their concern if they had to see and hear about it. You could beat your kid black and blue, as long as you keep him inside so the neighbors don’t have to look at the unsightly weeping bruises. After that, Eddie was pretty much alone. He’s small and quiet when he first meets someone, and his mom won’t let him participate in anything. He more or less bobs through the school day like a log on the river. 

They don’t have long - the mod boys are only out in the field for about forty-five more minutes before they need to clean up for supper. 

Bill and Eddie start to slink away from the kitchen table and quietly exit from the back door. Unfortunately for them, Georgie is right there outside, finishing up his last chore of the day, which is watering the chickens. 

“Billy!” He exclaims, “Where ya going? Can I come?” 

Bill hisses a _shhhh_ at him and looks back to the door. Sharon doesn’t come sternly marching over, so he turns back to Georgie. “Nowhere, c-calm down,” He says, loud enough to cover their asses, while dragging his brother around to the other side of the back porch. Eddie briskly follows with a concerned expression. “Wuh-we’re just gonna g-go through the cornfield, nothing exciting,” 

Georgie shrugs. “Then I can come?” He asks, with his cherubic smile and bright eyes turned all the way up. He’s terribly under stimulated ever since he got taken out of school. And he’s only nine, he needs a time and place to misbehave. He’s gotten more switchings since he’s been home, averaging once a week now instead of once in a blue moon. 

Bill looks at Eddie, who isn’t shaking his head one way or the other, and sighs. “Fine. B-but be kuh-quiet.” 

Georgie nods enthusiastically, and after one last check through the kitchen window, the three of them are off. 

They surf through the cornfield like a gust of wind, a human chain in the tall vegetation. It’s about half a mile to the potato field where the boys are working. Bill and Eddie have tread this path before, and they run along with Georgie between them until they reach visibility. 

Crouching in the corn, they scan the small group of four boys, for Stanley. “There,” Eddie eventually points to him, far into the field, struggling with a hoe. Zachary Denbrough sits obliviously in the middle of the work area in his pop-up chair with a bottle of water and a book. 

Bill tosses a stray rock at the feet of the boy closest to them, Steve Sadler. He’s only a couple weeks into the program, and there’s a moment of panic as he makes eye contact with Bill, then looks towards Mr. Denbrough. He doesn’t snitch, though, and inconspicuously makes his way over to the corn. 

“Tell Stabby Stan to come over here,” Bill orders Steve, and the boy bumbles his way over, whispers to Stanley, and takes his place as Eddie’s friend peruses his way to Steve’s spot. 

The boy, all pale and grim and bandaged wrists, looks up through his curls. His casual, faux-bored expression lands on them momentarily, then flickers further up and transforms into terror. 

“Hiya, Georgie!” Minister Bob says loudly, and everyone turns to look at him, just behind the three fugitives. Minister Bob is a tree of a human, standing over six feet tall with long, stiff arms. When the Hell did he even get there, and how did he do it without any of them noticing?

The semantics don’t really matter now, Georgie squeaking a hello to the minister. Bob Gray smiles that wicked smile and scoops Georgie up by his sunshine-yellow hoodie, brushing by Bill and Eddie to bring him into the work area. 

“Hey!” Bill yells and stomps after him without thinking. Eddie bolts, presumably hauling ass back to the Denbrough’s house. 

Minister Bob turns to him, and Zachary gets up out of his chair with a stern look on his face. Bill is halfway to the minister, deep enough in the field that he’s passed Stabby Stan. “I didn’t see you there, William!” Minister Bob lies through the gap in his stupid buck teeth. 

He released his hold on Georgie, who starts towards Bill, and whose big brother meets him in the middle. Bill tells himself he’s not scared of Minister Bob, he is not afraid of Minister Bob at all, and locks eyes with the man, not intending to back down. 

He is, though, at least kind-of afraid of his father. “What the Hell are you doing out here?” Zachary snaps, barreling their way. 

Bill’s courage melts, going slack jawed, using what’s left of it to put Georgie behind him. To be a physical barrier. “Wuh-we were j-j-just,” He tries, using his stutter to his advantage by pretending to fight with his own brain to get out the next word, when he’s really just thinking of a lie, “guh-going to ask if we c-can take a ear of corn for the chickens.” 

Mr. Denbrough, now only feet from his children, looks Bill up and down. It’s not clear if he believes him or not. “Why didn’t you ask your mother?” He asks, suspicious. 

“I!” Georgie pipes up, and then shrinks back into himself like he regrets it, gripping Billy’s shirt. “I wanted to be really sure it was okay, dad!” He claims, cowering. 

Bill nods, latching onto the idea. “I t-told Juh-Georgie we sh-should ask you.” 

Zachary eyes them like he wants to call them out on the lie. But Minister Bob doesn’t volunteer any incriminating information. Not even that Eddie had been with them, and there is no way that he’d have missed the salmon pink polo and scent of fear. Bill’s father seems to reluctantly accept the story, tight lipped as he walks over, rips an ear of corn off the stalks, and hands it to his eldest son. 

“Go home.” He commands, then turns away to pack up his chair and sling it over his shoulder. Minister Bob had come to collect the boys for supper. 

The next morning, Bill wakes up with his feet screaming. He’d knocked the bread basket off the edge of the counter with his elbow as they had congregated for their private family dinner. Not usually a paddling-level offense, but Bill suspects his father was still coasting on the upset he’d caused earlier. Sharon stopped him after four smacks to each foot, because it was _only_ bread, as far as she knew. 

At breakfast, his father tells him he’s coming to the mod building with him today. 

Bill follows him there, keeping most of his weight on his heels when dad isn’t looking. 

The mod building is the big farmhouse that had been on this land when they bought it. Bill’s small family had lived in it during the months it took to build their much more suitably sized home on the same property. It was a massive time capsule to when it was built, 1972, holding six wood-paneled bedrooms and four bathrooms with neon orange sink bowls. Bill and Georgie had separate rooms when they lived here. 

Two of the girls are already up and scrubbing the porch when they approach - they must have done something bad last night, too - Zachary not even looking down at them as he walks right over their hard work in his field boots. Bill does his best to look apologetic. 

They pass Sonia’s makeshift office, which had previously been the living room and now has some out-of-place glass doors to separate it from the dining room and main entrance. The doors to the hall are open, and Bill can see Eddie inside, sitting behind his mother as she flusters to prepare for the morning. She’s always anxious about new kids, though Bill doesn’t know why. Sonia barely sees them. Sonia doesn’t get dragged along as an example. 

But Bill does, following his father up the stairs to unlock the doors. Holding his hands out to collect the numbered padlocks as Zachary flings them off. 

“Rise and shine! Up and at’em! No time like the present!” Mr. Denbrough hollars on his crusade down the hall. It’s four am and the lone girl will need to go get breakfast started while the boys clean their bathrooms. 

Bill and all his nepotized glory gets to set the tables for the seven mod kids, and collect the girls out on the porch when the vat of oatmeal and loaf of toast is made. He passes Eddie again, mouth zipped shut but eyes confused and worried. Bill doesn’t know if Minister Bob told anyone that Eddie was with him and Georgie yesterday. He can’t tell if Eddie is being punished, or if he’s stuck with Sonia because _Bill_ is being punished. 

One of the girls on the porch is Kay McCall, who is getting a new roommate today. Bill sighs, and instead of announcing that breakfast is ready at the door, steps out onto the porch. Carefully, onto one of the drier spots. He looks at Kay McCall, her dyke haircut and long dress at odds with each other. He recalls she’d come here all punked out, studded denim vest and nose ring and combat boots, but didn’t really make too many waves. Seemed like she was trying to duck in and duck back out, which is the smarter way to do it. Put up minimal resistance, get stamped with a nice big CURED! and get on out of here. “Wuh-what did you do?” He asks, suddenly wondering why Kay McCall was scrubbing the floor. 

“What’d _you_ do?” She spits back, tossing the brush in the bucket of soapy water, exasperated. She gestures at Bill’s feet, only the sides his shoes making contact with wood, keeping as much pressure off of his arches as possible. 

Bill nods in a kind of understanding. He’s not showing his so he’ll have to go without seeing hers. “You’re getting a room-m-mate today.” He says instead. 

Kay McCall makes a face at that. 

“And breakfast is ready.” 

The other girl, Betty Ripsom, ignores their exchange completely and moves to head inside. Bill hobbles in front of the door to stop her, to get one last bit of information to Kay. “Tell St-Stabby Stan he’s getting one too-tomorrow.” And with that, he moves aside to let them into the house. 

Kay McCall whispers to Stabby Stan at the table, while Bill is doing the dishes. Stanley looks up at him, and Bill gestures his head towards Sonia’s office, where Eddie is still camped out and probably will be all day. Stanley’s face falls darker. 

Minister Bob shows up, and the kids are filed out of the house to do whatever they’ve got on their lists today. Girls have laundry to wash and hang, boys have mowing and compost turning to do. Minister Bob isn’t much an outdoorsy man, though. He and Zachary switch out so Mr. Gray holds Bill’s reins. 

He suggests, sickeningly innocent, that Bill cleans the solitary room. And it’s _such_ a big job, why doesn’t one of the boys stay behind and help? How about Stanley?

The solitary room doesn't get cleaned all that often. It’s at most a closet’s worth of space, an outhouse-looking-and-smelling structure by the barn. No heat, no light, no toilet, just a cold poured concrete floor and solid wood no one’s managed to break out of yet. 

Bill hasn’t been this near the thing since it was brand new, preferring to steer clear of it. Minister Bob unlocks the thing, and Bill doesn’t know how he’s still got that open-mouth grin on his face, because the stench is overwhelming. 

Most of what Bill and Stanley are made to clean up is human waste, spilled out of the provided bucket or vomited by someone trapped in there with it. The two of them barely fit inside together, scrubbing the floor and walls with a half bleach, half water mixture that browns with the first returning dip. They refill it twice, and are nearly done when the minister, who had not moved from his watch even once, pipes up again. 

“What did you want to tell your buddy, William?” He asks. 

Stanley’s face, which had already been gaunt with an emotion Bill couldn’t decipher, pulls into one he could - anger. Sharply pulling the brush down the board he’s working on, he glares down at Bill who is on the floor, flecks of rot on his cheeks from the brushes’ bristles. 

“Go on, tell him,” Minister Bob goads. 

Bill swallows, the ammonia scent has his eyes watering at throat burning. “Yuh-you’re g-getting a ruh-roommate tomorrow,” He says weakly. Minister Bob raises his eyebrows when he turns to him, so he goes on. “A g-gay boy from Chicago. Th-that’s all,” 

“Are you jealous, Billy?” Minister Bob asks in a taunting, bullying tone. 

“Wuh-what? N-no!” Bill exclaims, drawing himself out of the structure and up, his feet still on fire. He did this whole thing for _Eddie,_ not Stabby Stan, not even himself! How fucking dare this asshole, this fucking... _clown_ accuse him of being queer! He’s Zachary Denbrough’s son, he knows damn well better than that!

Minister Bob nods, and comes to take the bucket of water and brushes from the boys, indicating they’re done. But then holds up a hand to Stanley before he can exit solitary. He faces Bill again, hands him the chain that had fallen to the ground. 

“Lock your boyfriend up.” He orders. 

Bill doesn’t have a choice. 

Stanley looks completely hateful as the door is shut on him, Minister Bob having poured the excrement bucket out just behind the clean-as-it-can-be solitary room and shoved it back in with him. 

Maybe they’re from the smell, maybe they’re from the sheer frustration of it all, but Bill has real tears streaming down his face as he locks Stabby Stan in solitary, earning a clap on his shoulder from Minister Bob.


	4. Stan Uris Greets New Guests

Stan doesn’t know which is worse - the bleach fumes he’s enclosed with or the fresh shit trough right behind him. The mixture feels like something he just might get high off of. At least the boards are clean enough to put the side of his face to the cracks, try to get some fresh air. 

He sighs and shuts his eyes, awkwardly pressed into the wall. 

_What the fuck is wrong with the Denbrough kid?_

Stan understands, he does, that being raised by these people must be hellish. He’s only been here for six and a half weeks and it’s been the worst six and a half weeks of his entire life. He cannot wait for his two months to be up. However: Stan has only been here for six and a half weeks and _he_ knows you have to be quiet about shit. You don’t bring a child in a highlighter of an outfit on your secret mission. Having Kay tell him was absolutely fucking fine. She got the information across. Why didn’t he just do that from the beginning? Why was it so important to tell him he’s getting another roommate, anyway? 

He knows the Denbrough kid calls him Stabby Stan, and has since Stan punctured Victor Criss’ cheek with a pencil. He recognizes that Denbrough gestured at Eddie this morning, who seems like just as much a prisoner as the rest of them, if the spoiled Al Capone among them. Maybe Eddie put him up to it, naively thinking he was helping. As if telling him he’s getting a new roommate will be sufficient preparation for whatever insane putz he’ll end up with. Eddie is really lucky he’s pretty, because he has no goddamn common sense. 

If Stan has to stab this new boy, he fucking will, and it’ll be because he was forced to. 

Eventually, he sits down on the concrete, crowded into a corner to keep his nose in a separation between boards. The only good thing about solitary is that you can sleep in, and at least this time he’s not sitting in anything gross. He’d tried to lay his shirt down the last time but that had just left him topless until the minister let him out, and he’d been forced to put the putrid thing back on for the workday. 

He doesn’t know how much later it is, but he fights the sensation of waking up. He can hear footsteps scuffing his way, muffled speaking, but the sun-warmed wood keeps him lulled and almost comfortable if he doesn’t think about where he is. He’s almost back to sleep when something hits the wall he’s sleeping against, his face harshly bouncing off the wood and coming back to hit it, drawing blood from his nose. 

Stan makes a gasping, breathless noise, hands coming up to cup around his face, and someone chuckles outside. Announces how, if the person with whom Stan now recognizes by voice to be Mr. Denbrough is smart, they’ll never end up here. 

Through the gaps he can see two men and a shock of short red hair before it’s dragged away. Stuffing the bandage on his right wrist up to his nostrils, Stan wonders what time it is. If that’s Kay’s new girl or his new boy. Whoever it is, Mr. Denbrough is awfully comfortable with men escorting them, because Stan knows for a fact he didn’t show Mr. and Mrs. Uris this particular level of hell. 

The shittiest, or second shittiest, part of solitary is being left alone with your thoughts. After the tourists are long gone and the dripping blood begins to slow, Stan lays his head back on the wood. He thinks about his parents. Do they miss him? Will they regret sending him here? Will he be good enough, fixed enough, for them? His wrists have mostly healed, even though he did pop a stitch or three his first week here. Will they scar? Every time he looks at them, often in the going-cold shower at night after dinner, they are still there. Still raised, horizontal lines, starting to go a little white along the ridge. Will they be there the rest of his life? Until he cuts the right way? Patrick told him he should’ve gone vertical. 

Overhead, the sky grows amber, and the other boys file in from the field. A couple of them look towards solitary, and it’s impossible to know what they’re thinking. Maybe they feel bad for him. Maybe they’re mad they had to pick up the slack left by his absence. 

He’s not really tired anymore, but there’s nothing else to do. Stan wills himself back to sleep despite the chill of nightfall, tucking his arms into his short-sleeved shirt. 

Next time he wakes up, his bloody nose feels frozen. It’s the sound of the chain being dragged off the door that rouses him, and he’s on the slow uptake as Mr. Denbrough has to drag him out by the shoulder seam of his shirt, nearly pulling it off of him. 

Stan scrambles to get his arms back where they belong in his shirt as he’s marched back into the house, straight to a bathroom because it’s time to get ready for church. The other kids are already eating breakfast and his shower is ice cold. The blood stains his upper lip slightly and clings painfully to his pathetic excuse for facial hair. He stands in the mirror scraping it off until Mr. Denbrough bangs on the door, his ten minutes up. 

When Stan enters his room to get dressed, the door left open a crack so that he can hear the impatient huffing and foot tapping, a familiar brown box is on the bed opposite his. That’ll be a King James Version bible, one sweatshirt with _TEEN RESCUE_ printed across the back of it, sweatpants with the same stamping down one leg, a paper schedule, a sheet of rules, and good socks and a tie for church. Stan rushes to put on his own, and dog-ears a forty-seventh page of his bible. Thirteen more to go. 

Finally, he joins the other kids as Mrs. Denbrough is marching them out the door. Bringing up the rear of the boy’s line means no sitting next to Eddie today. Stan’s not sure he’s upset by that, his emotions still a mish-mash of guilt and blame and he’s just not sure he wants to talk to anyone right now. They have a group session tonight, which is always exhausting. Always comes to yelling, or crying, or switching. Stan has no desire to be upset _all_ day. 

It’s not too crowded. He gets put in the pew behind Eddie’s, on the opposite end. He gives him a tight-lipped smile, just an _I’m fine_ of a gesture, when Eddie looks over his shoulder with a concerned expression. 

Then, a girl plunks down next to him. Kay sighs hard and crams herself onto the end next to who Stan can only assume is her new roomy. 

The girl, mop of short red hair on her head, starts to say something but is hushed by Mrs. Denbrough as she walks by to the very front. She tries again and is lightly smacked in the arm by Kay. 

Minister Bob starts his spiel, and today he’s off on a rant about honesty and how snitching will really help your friends in the long run, and Stan can only guess what the subject of group will be later. 

The Denbrough kids look uncomfortable. 

Halfway through, the new girl is finally able to spit out what she wanted to. “Are you the one who was in that box yesterday?” She whispers, leaning onto his shoulder in a surprisingly intimate-feeling way. It forces Stan to realize how long it’s been since someone touched him for anything other than punishment. “I didn’t see you at dinner,” 

He curtly nods, still facing forward. 

She nods, too, and looks around before leaning in again. _See, Denbrough, this is how you talk here. She’s been here like half a day and she gets it._ Stan thinks. 

“Sorry Bowers kicked you yesterday, he’s a dick.” She says, and straightens back up. 

Stan is hungry and emotionally fried and possibly still floating on fumes, and something about the word ‘dick’ forces him to smother a laugh. He finally turns to look at the girl, who smiles back at him. She’s pretty. Her eyes are clear blue and a little sad already. Overachiever. 

“I’m Bev,” She tells him. 

Stan puts his hand out, and she shakes it lightly. “Stan,” he replies. 

“Shut up,” Kay hisses on the other side of Bev. 

They do, for the rest of church. He’s actually in an okay mood when they leave, filing back out in their boy-and-girl lines. Bev bumps her shoulder to his as they walk out the door, blissfully unaware of their audience. 

Walking down the dirt road back to the house, a half mile trek, they witness the coming of the other new kid. A wood-paneled sedan pulls into the house’s driveway. Mrs. Kaspbrak greets them, having already returned as she never walks with them and instead takes her car. Stan can see her porky arm pointing their way, probably at Mr. Denbrough and his family who head their odd duckling formation, and minister Bob, who herds them from the end of the line. Making sure no one makes a break for it, probably. Stan’s heard stories. 

The car produces two elderly people who stand and talk to Mrs. Kaspbrak while both Eddie and whoever the old people brought along are still in their metaphorical prison busses. As they approach, Mr. Denbrough breaks off to meet them. Mrs. Denbrough and her children fracture off to go to their own house, and Mrs. Kaspbrak opens the car door to send Eddie along with them. He looks like he’d have run for it, like a dog who hasn’t been out all day, if he didn’t know his mom would scold him about afflictions he doesn’t actually seem to have. He checks on Stan over his shoulder again, then buddies up to the older Denbrough and disappears around the side of the home with him. 

Minister Bob flocks them into the house, not allowing Stan a glance at what he’ll be up against. 

Sunday is supposed to be a day of rest or some shit, but idle hands are the devil’s playground, and Christian people have a lot of sayings that conflict and don’t make sense. So after they change out of their presentable clothes, the boys and girls are split again to start the day’s chores. While the boys don’t head out to the field today, they do feed the pigs and muck the barn and when the girls bring out fresh laundry, help them hang it. And they get to do it at their most unsupervised ever - Minister Bob is busy on Sundays, Mr. Denbrough is occupied with his sales pitch, and Mrs. Kaspbrak just sits by the screen door because she doesn’t like to go outside. 

Stan finds himself with Bev and Kay again, holding an awkwardly wide basket that they pull sheets and pillowcases from. 

It’s weird, how Beverly feels like a breath of fresh air. She smiles. She laughs. Openly, but quietly. Like she knows the drill, and it hasn’t broken her completely. Something about it feels kind of like hope. 

Maybe he’s just starved of affection. Constant abuse, beratement, and accusations against his sexuality aside, the other girls here don’t seem right to look at; Kay’s a lesbian, Betty’s extremely reserved, and Marcia Fadden talks about her boyfriend nonstop. It’s nice to be able to flirt a little with a girl again, something Stan didn’t know he missed until Beverly whaps his cheek with a pair of damp panties and he jokes about not even taking her out to dinner first. 

Kay rolls her eyes, exasperated with a girl who keeps drawing attention to them and Stan’s uncharacteristic behavior. But Bev’s face breaks out in a grin and she giggles raw and genuine, and that feels like a reward. 

The pastoral moment is rudely interrupted by Mr. Denbrough, bursting out the back door, off on another tour. The smile falls off of Bev’s face, Stan’s eyes dart to the ground. As Mr. Denbrough and only one other set of footsteps come down the porch steps, he glances up. 

The elderly people are not with him, just a tall teenage boy with dark curly hair and big glasses. The kid is looking around with a frown on his face, like a confused puppy. He walks backwards at one point, hands shoved in the pocket of a hoodie and eyes fixed on the horde of quiet teenagers who do not acknowledge their presence. Mr. Denbrough quickly corrects that, a light whack to Chicago Boy’s calf with his switch cane. A harder one, to his back when he gasps “What the fuck?!” 

“There is no first day leniency here. You learn the rules and obey them starting right now.” Mr. Denbrough spits harshly, “No swearing.” He declares. 

As the pair shamble off into the bleak property, Bev kicks his foot a little to bring his attention back to her. “How high’s the turnover rate?” She asks, suddenly serious. 

Kay answers for him, snatching one of the girls’ baggy, faded pastel dresses out of the basket. “Not high enough. Just a busy week, I guess.” She seethes, pinning the thing on the line. 

The boy doesn’t show back up until lunchtime, when Stan is _finally_ about to get to eat, even if it is just toast and pinto beans mixed with chunks of cheap definitely not-Kosher hotdog. Mr. Denbrough always has the worst timing and Stan swears he sees a shit-eating grin crop up on the minister’s face when he gets called to show the kid their room. 

He wants to groan. He wants to sigh, or to say no, or to grab that cane out of Mr. Denbrough’s hand and demolish the fucker. But he can’t, so he pouts for a moment and drags himself out of the chair he’d just sat down in. 

Chicago Boy is introduced to him as Richard. He is introduced to Richard as Stanley. They are told to get along. No touching. 

They don’t so much as bump shoulders going up the steps, the new kid already keeping his head down and mouth shut. It’s not an uncommon reaction, and it’s a sick relief.

Chicago Boy Richard has got a lot of height and body weight on him, that much is evident. A good few inches and at least fifty pounds on the lanky-before-he-got-here, forty-seven-days-into-the-batshit-Baptist-diet Stan. Vic had been about Stan’s size, he’d been able to push that psycho off. He’s not terribly confident he could do the same with Richard - even that laundry basket felt pretty heavy to him earlier. But if the guy is bending already, he probably won’t be much of a threat. Hopefully. 

“Dude,” Chicago Boy Richard says, the second the door is a couple inches from shut, “what the fuck is this place?” He hisses. Stan shrugs, and he makes a goofy exasperated gesture. He sits on Stan’s bed and puts his head in his hands. 

Standing by the door, Stan’s unsure how to proceed with the room tour until he hears sniffling. 

Everyone cries at some point or another. First day seems like a popular choice. The desperate part of Stan files it away as evidence, because even though they all do it, no one likes to admit it. 

Soon Richard is unabashedly bawling, and Stan, inept at comfort, can only awkwardly plant himself in front of the gap in the door in an attempt at kindness. But he can only do it for so long, because chairs scrape away from tables and water runs downstairs and it’ll be time for therapy soon. 

He pats the kid’s back maybe too hard, and kneels in front of him. “Look I get you’re having a moment, I do, we’re all here and it sucks and I know that. But you need to get your shit together before someone sees you.” 

For a few more ultra-paranoid minutes, Richard gulps and wipes his blotchy face on his sleeve until he finally collects himself. Stan rushes through the “I’m Stan, this bed and box of shit is yours now, they’re going to go through your stuff and take most of it” spiel. To his utter panic, Richard produces a CD player from the waistband of his jeans. Chicago Boy has, however, apparently thought about this and shimmies it between the headboard and wall, which mildly lulls Stan’s flaring sirens. 

“You don’t actually go by Richard, do you?” Stan asks, back turned while the other boy changes into program-approved sweatclothes so that his can be confiscated. 

“Uhg!” His roommate exclaims, poking his head out of the sweatshirt. He’s wiping a gross snot string on his hoodie when Stan turns around, and blots his red face with a dry patch. “No,” he eventually replies, sounding tired despite how little of Teen Rescue he’s experienced so far today. “Call me Richie,”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry this chapter took so long!


End file.
